Apple has decided to pay up for an allegedly stolen clock design in its latest iOS 6 mobile operating system.

IOS 6, which was released last month only days ahead of the iPhone 5, featured a new clock design for the iPad that seemed pretty basic. Just a white face with black, rectangular notches representing the numbers, black hour/minute hands and a red seconds hand. No big deal, right?

Wrong. The iOS 6 clock was nearly identical to a clock design developed by a railway company in Switzerland called Swiss Federal Railways (SBB). SBB said its company created that clock design back in 1944.

SBB's clock [left] and Apple's iOS 6 clock design (right)

[Image Source: IBN Live]

When SBB became aware of the stolen design, it immediately contacted Apple in hopes of some sort of licensing agreement.

"We are proud that this icon of clock design is being used by a globally successful company," said Reto Kormann, SBB spokesperson. "We've approached Apple and told them that the rights for this clock belong to us."

It's interesting to see Apple on the losing end of a copyright infringement claim; especially after the hell it has put Samsung through over mobile patent lawsuits. After a lengthy battle with Samsung around the globe, a U.S. jury found Samsung guilty of copying the iPhone/iPad for its Galaxy line. Not only was Samsung ordered to pay $1.05 billion USD in damages, but a court date on December 6 may lead to more product bans for the South Korean electronics maker. Apple is also looking to boost that $1.05 billion fine to $3 billion.

Apple's App image is not "100% similar" (by that I'd guess you mean that they are exactly the same).

Apple's design has slightly narrower hands and longer back sections to those hands.Apple's design has no prominent outer silver casing/band.Apple's design is 2D not 3D.Apple's design does not have the prominent logo in the bottom half of the face.Apple's design has narrower minute marks (marks between the hour marks).Apple's design has a very noticeable red circle over the attachment point not on the Swiss clock.

HOWEVER...Apple admitted it looks "similar enough" to cough up a fee to license the design.

Sounds like Apple is willing to admit that some things are similar enough to require licensing even if they are the ones who have to pay.

Should Apple have gotten a license BEFORE they started shipping the product. Absolutely, yes. At least they have corrected that now.

And the red second hand. Most notably is the fact that the Swiss Railways clock is iconic. Apple settled because it was a direct copy.

As to the Apple vs. Samsung patent litigation, where some here are comparing the two as Apple paying up and Samsung refusing to license, the situation is far more complex.

There is disagreement as to whether there ever was any infringement. A jury agreed there was, an appeal will either uphold or overturn that lower ruling. But the crux of the matter was that there was a disagreement that there was any infringement to begin with.

Design patent and trademark have very similar terms to copyright (only the owner of the IP is allowed to make copies) while being significantly more broad (only the owner of the IP is allowed to make similar items).

You beat me to it. Apple infringes, they pay up. Samsung infringes, they refuse to pay licensing fees and go to court. Microsoft and many other companies pay licensing fees to Apple and vice versa, why isn't a company as massive as Samsung doing the same?

That's because Apple's requested licensing fees were completely unreasonable - $30 per smartphone, $40 per tablet. With royalties like that, Apple would've been making more profit off of Samsung's phones and tablets than Samsung. Their requested fees wasn't a bona fide attempt to be compensated for rights to their IP. It was an attempt to eliminate competitors from the market.http://allthingsd.com/20120810/breaking-apple-offe...

A typical license fee for a good technology patent is around 1%. For minor and FRAND patents and mass-produced items, it's closer to 0.1% or less. Whatever Apple is paying Swiss Railway to license the clock design, I guarantee you it is not 5%-10% the cost of an iPhone. Don't even try to pretend the situations are in any way similar.

Look, whether you're on Apple's side or Samsung's side, realize what's really going on. This has nothing to do with inventions and protecting innovation. This is all about exploiting the current IP system to screw over your competitor(s) by getting their products banned from the market for a minor infringement. Once you have them over a barrel and they're cut off from their revenue stream, then you can force them to agree to completely unrealistic licensing fees they would've scoffed at before.

It's what happened to RIM - over 2/3rds of a billion dollars for the "innovative" idea of sending email over cellular wireless networks instead of 802.11bgn wireless networks. Even Apple has been victim to this. They're on the current patent trolling tear because they've been screwed over in the past by patent trolls requiring them to pay licensing fees for nonsensical patents. They've just chosen to fight fire with fire, rather than the mutually assured destruction detente other companies chose by amassing huge patent portfolios.

Oh and let's dispel this notion that Microsoft entered a cross licensing deal with Apple because of some sort of sense of morality or whatever you're shoveling. They did so because they had virtually no patents that would allow them to compete with Samsung, Apple, and others when it came to mobile devices.

Samsung and Motorola essentially developed the lions share of the underlying technologies that make these mobile devices even possible. Microsoft and Apple are just standing on the shoulders of giants and building off that, nothing more.

You act as if Apple is an upstart or welterweight. They've been making computers now for several decades. They literally funded the ARM company's inception, the first browser was developed on NeXTStep HW, invented the term PDA and even developed one of the first alongside the Psion.

"They literally funded the ARM company's inception"ARM has been around long time before the iToys, to your information even Intel was using there technology on their CPUs... PDAs and what not were already using ARM long before the iPhone.

"the first browser was developed on NeXTStep HW"By someone totally unrelated to Apple, how many things were developed on MS-DOS or windows? are we also giving credit to MS for that?...

"invented the term PDA and even developed one of the first alongside the Psion."Alongside? more like 9 years later than Psion, besides the PDA development were mostly done by companies like Palm and so on, Apple did enter the PDA market but were kicked out very fast from it. And BTW it was Nokia that released the first PDA with phone capabilities now called SMARTPHONES.

Seriously what I dislike the most on iTards is there ability to give Apple credit for just about anything while ignoring someone else input completely.

Apple's use of ARM in the Newton, 1993, was directly related to their funding the creation of the modern ARM processor in 1990.

You also seem to discount the Newton, despite the fact that it was in fact 1) One of the first PDAs, 2) The Psion 3, a real PDA, was only released in 1991 a scant two years before the Newton, 3) The Newton formfactor was in fact the archetype for the Palm Pilot, iPhone, and all modern slate style devices.

Apple was ONE of the investors not the only investor, also you're stretching quite a bit to imply that ARM is anywhere it is today cause of Apple, as I said before ARM has been doing business without Apple for a long time, if ARM was counting on Apple alone they would be long gone, their success is entirely due to their own expertise and have little to do with Apple, sure Apple put some money in and used their core logic but so did others.

Scant 2 years? even if it was 1, it still makes the Psion 3 the first PDA and by a good margin, aren't you iTards bragging about the iPhone

quote: The Newton formfactor was in fact the archetype for the Palm Pilot, iPhone, and all modern slate style devices.

Key word SLATE, and they have been around from long before Apple, without joking you could see slate like devices on SciFi movies before 1993 and even books described such device... maybe Apple didn't invent anything after all and just copied the form factor from a movie.

I think that's why I am so much happier and generally more relaxed than some of you iPhobes, I live in the real world and in that one Apple is doing pretty well. You live in an imaginary world in which Apple is always about to be overwhelmed by Android and so you suffer constant disappointment. Must be very galling.

Glad the clock thing got sorted though - that was the one thing that could have brought Apple crashing down :)

Tony, you silly little man, only you take the choice of Apple or another vendor to the point of some kind of choice driven by extreme sentiments. It's not.

Apple products are a poor value proposition for many people such as myself. It's really that simple, Apple offers nothing that I can't obtain at lower cost and with fewer operating restrictions. It's nothing to get worked up about, I suppose if I were much more helpless with tech I might find the Apple pitch more appealing.

Apple's success as a company is another matter. I have made a boatload of money selling Apple puts this year. Thus the net flow of cash is from Apple to me, which is as it should be.

quote: It turns out that while some of you have been watching videos, playing a game, whatever, on what you thought was a Wi-Fi network, you were actually running up your giant 3G data bill. Apple hasn't commented on this, but on September 30th, Apple quietly released a bug fix for the problem for its Verizon customers.

No. Zero percent impact is impossible to evaluate. You can’t know the admittedly small number of people that would not buy the phone due to this defect.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s assume it is zero percent And that is part of the issue, you know.

If batteries came defective and lasted half the time, you know what would be impact? Zero.

If the screen was an inch larger, you know what would be the impact? Zero.

If the processor had 70% or 130% of its current power, you know what would be the impact? Zero.

Arguments on this line are meaningless.

“Meanwhile in the real world” That is the same world that values a soccer player 100 times more than a Nobel laureate. I have a friend that worked on a jeans factory. 25% of the production was separated for one branding, the other 75% got another. The exact same jeans made 3-4 times more expensive by the tag attached to it. My aunt worked on a store that had a certain brand of perfume that went for $30-40. Since it was not going well, they doubled the price and then some, to $80-100, and sales went UP.

This is the world that you use to validate your opinions?

If you put Android on an IPhone 5 and show to people on the street, many would say how much better is has become since 4S. If you show an IPhone 5 with IOS 2 many would say the same. If you put IOS 6 on a Samsung and show it around to iFans, they would snigger is disdain.

Anyway, about the clock design. They copied it. Plain and simple: “It’s very nice, let’s copy and not pay a dime. We could ask, but they might say no, so we’ll copy and wait until they complain. Then we quietly give some spare change and everyone is happy. If they don’t complain, we get away with it and everyone is even happier. “ Morally wrong? Yup. Business wrong? Not at all. Legally wrong? Not anymore.

But they copied. Can you come down form your stand and admit it? Can you come out here and say:

OH YA. I'm sure our beloved apple would have won the case if it had gone to court in the beloved USA. apple knew better then to fight in a country known for being FAIR in a court of law. No time for them to do any bribing or, not sure if the Swiss know of such a thing as a Lobbyist(Influence Peddler).

Exactly and we all know copyright law aka LexDisney sets the expiration time to the age of one Mickey Mouse + a little buffer.

I find it insane that any sort of copyright outlasts patents. I mean we are talking mostly entertainment and the like that took little effort vs. inventions that can take work in a totally different scale.

The railway should be seeking an injunction to ban all infringing Apple products. Haven't they heard that seeking a reasonable licensing agreement is simply not acceptable these days? The only sane thing to do in this day in age is seek an immediate and complete ban. God forbid sanity might return to the patent/trademark world.

Sounds like a publicity stunt to me. I wouldn't be surprised if they orchestrated this with the train company.

They needed some stupid little design that could be recognized, have someone bring it up, and then try to look like the good guys for licensing it. Costs Apple virtually nothing, but big rewards. They set a precedence -- "see, we pay fees for stuff that we "inadvertently" copy."